Frame shared memory: line-rate networking on commodity hardware

Abstract

Network processors provide an economical programmable platform to handle the high throughput and frame rates of modern and next-generation communication systems. However, these platforms have exchanged general-purpose capabilities for performance. This paper presents an alternative; a software network processor (Soft-NP) framework using commodity general-purpose platforms capable of high-rate and throughput sequential frame processing compatible with high-level languages and general-purpose operating systems. A cache-optimized concurrent lock free queue provides the necessary low-overhead core-to-core communication for sustained sequential frame processing beyond the realized 1.41 million frames per second (Gigabit Ethernet) while permitting perframe processing time expansion with pipeline parallelism.